Veto Republicans

"What the data shows, with regard
to most issues, we do not need to speculate about the future, for we
already know what the past has shown
us namely, that it is Republican policies that have repeatedly,
regularly, and with remarkable consistency brought us large increases
in the rate and duration of unemployment, in the frequency, depth, and
duration of recessions, and depressions, in socio-economic inequalities
in wealth and income, and in rates of suicide, homicide, and (since the
mid-1970's) imprisonment and capital punishments; and it is Democratic
policies that have brought us equally large decreases in all of those
destructive phenomena (even in imprisonment and capital punishment, as
the contrast between the Red and Blue States shows.)" James Gilligan: Why
Some Politicians are More Dangerous Than Others.

There is no question in my mind anymore that the
Republican Party has reconfigured itself as a Confederate party. Not
because it is
so largely white, though it is. Not because it is largely Southern,
though it is that, too. And not because it fights so hard for vestigial
accoutrements like the Confederate battle flag. The Republican Party is
a Confederate party, I think, because that is its view of what the
government of the United States should be. It is written quite clearly
in the party's platform that the Republicans adopted last week in
Tampa: "The Republican party... stands for the rights of individuals,
families, faith communities. institutions — and of the States which are
their instruments of self-government." Charles
Pierce: Esquire Magazine 9/2012

"The Republican party has become an insurgent
outlier -- ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social
and
economic policy regime; scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by
conventional understanding of facts, evidence, science, and
dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one
party moves this far from the center of American politics,it is
extremely difficult to enact policies responsive to the countries
most pressing challenges..." Thomas Mann and Norman Orenstein: It's
Even Worse than it Looks: How the American Constitutional
System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism

...movement Conservatives that had taken over the
Republican Party ... an ideology that permitted wealth to concentrate
wealth at the top, just as the defense of antebellum slavery had been.
The Republican Party in the twenty-first century adhered to the
position it had organized in the nineteenth century to fight. And like
their southern predecessors in the 1850s, Movement Conservatives in
2004 were boasting that “Republican hegemony” would last “for years,
maybe decades.” Like their predecessors, they were wrong. A looming
crises soon revealed that their devotion to an ideology divorced from
reality meant they no longer knew how to govern. Heather Cox
Richardson: To
Make Men Free, a History of the Republican Party.

And for the Republicans in Congress, there’s another
interest—namely, to undermine anything that Obama, you know, the
Antichrist, might try to do. So that’s a separate issue there. The
Republicans stopped being an ordinary parliamentary party some years
ago. They were described, I think accurately, by Norman Ornstein, the
very respected conservative political analyst, American Enterprise
Institute; he said the party has become a radical insurgency which has
abandoned any commitment to parliamentary democracy. And their goal for
the last years has simply been to undermine anything that Obama might
do, in an effort to regain power and serve their primary constituency,
which is the very wealthy and the corporate sector. They try to conceal
this with all sorts of other means. In doing so, they’ve had to—you
can’t get votes that way, so they’ve had to mobilize sectors of the
population which have always been there but were never mobilized into
an organized political force: evangelical Christians, extreme
nationalists, terrified people who have to carry guns into Starbucks
because somebody might be after them, and so on and so forth. That’s a
big force. And inspiring fear is not very difficult in the United
States. It’s a long history, back to colonial times, of—as an extremely
frightened society, which is an interesting story in itself. And
mobilizing people in fear of them, whoever "them" happens to be, is an
effective technique used over and over again. And right now, the
Republicans have—their nonpolicy has succeeded in putting them back in
a position of at least congressional power. So, the attack on—this is a
personal attack on Obama, and intended that way, is simply part of that
general effort. But there is a common strategic concern underlying it,
I think, and that is pretty much what U.S. intelligence analyzes:
preventing any deterrent in the region to U.S. and Israeli actions." Noam
Chomsky comments on Netanyahu talk to the Congress 2015

" ... the elements are in place: a weak legislative
body, a legal system that
is both compliant and repressive, a party system in which one party,
whether in opposition or in the majority, is bent upon reconstituting
the existing system so as to permanently favor a ruling class of the
wealthy, the well-connected and the corporate, while leaving the poorer
citizens with a sense of helplessness and political despair, and, at
the same time, keeping the middle classes dangling between fear of
unemployment and expectations of fantastic rewards once the new economy
recovers. That scheme is abetted by a sycophantic and increasingly
concentrated media; by the integration of universities with their
corporate benefactors; by a propaganda machine institutionalized in
well-funded think tanks and conservative foundations; by the
increasingly closer cooperation between local police and national law
enforcement agencies aimed at identifying terrorists, suspicious aliens
and domestic dissidents." Sheldon
Wolin: Inverted Totalitarianism

America's fundamental problem, in my opinion, since
Ronald Reagan came to office January 20, 1981, and declared the
fateful words: "Government is not the solution to our
problem, Government is the problem" we have been on a more
than a 30 year jag of dismantling the very means to address the
challenges we face as a society. Jeffrey Sachs
CSPAN 2/17/12

Republicans don't like
government. Their single-minded goal is not
about good government, because their values are mostly
about money, their priorities are warped. In
short, they are determined
to get power, and they don't much care how they do it. They win by
gaming elections, misinformation,
gerrymandering, voter
suppression, or even dirty tricks. That's how W
won Florida (with his
brother's help) that resulted in massive tax
cuts for the wealthy, two
pointless wars, and his legacy, clueless Supreme
Court that assured the
corruption of the US with Citizen's United.

"the real incomes of middle class families have grown
twice as fast
under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes
of working poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats
as they have under Republicans." Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy,
the Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

"The Republicans have a pretty simple philosophy:
they say
if those at the top have more — more power for Wall Street players to
do whatever they want and more money for tax cuts than somehow they can
be counted on to build the economy for everyone else. Well, we tried it
for 30 years and it didn’t work. In fact the consequences were nearly
catastrophic." Elizabeth
Warren

The
Federal budget is the opposite of what
people, when polled, would
want.

Members of Congress are quite
wealthy. So it is no surprise
that the US is now a feudal state, one run by the
very wealthy. See
this video
(Joseph Stiglitz)

In the face of massive unemployment, Republicans decided,
against advice of our best economists,
that austerity should be at the top of
the agenda and they proposed a budget to
match. Since unemployment was certain to go up with their policy, many
of
us think they intended to crash
the economy to win election. History shows
austerity doesn't counter recession. Ask the Europeans. Paul
Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, elaborates this in
his book:
End This Depression Now!

In Republican states, austerity
resulted in massive public
sector layoffs, degradation of services, reduced pensions, devastated
schools, and more
unemployment. 17,000
people may die because they live in a State that refused Medicaid
expansion. Republicans are openly hostile to labor
unions, and, as in Wisconsin, rolled back public sector bargaining
rights. Republican logic: Low wages accompanied by tax cuts for
the wealthy makes a State "business friendly". When the tax cuts
cause revenue decline, Republicans cry emergency and they find the
easiest cuts to make are for public sector pensions. New Jersey
underfunded pensions for a long time, until Governor Christie decided
to fix the problem by having employees pay more and cutting benefits.
When he found that the New Jersey was still over $800 million out of
balance, he decided to hit the pension fund again. Although lower
wages, shrunken pensions, and corporate welfare widen income
inequality, many State's compete to sink the middle class, and
persue fastest possible path to
the bottom

* History shows that every democracy
is short lived. Republicans economic policy is always regressive.
As wealth becomes concentrated,
people in general lose their voices, an oligopoly
then governs, financial volatility
increases, an empire ensues, and finally
it is all destroyed. The US is well along this
path. When most people do not agree with the opinions of the
affluent, studies show that the
wealthy prevail. Republican initiatives have created an oligopoly, a
strong-man head of state, ripped off
the middle class, crashed the economy,
downsized our civil liberties, and
are putting the next generation into debt servitude. The Constitution was designed to protect us
from
concentrated power, but Republicans are not paying attention to
that part. What they have accomplished is treasonous: Government by
Corporations. (aka fascism)

Since Reagan, the U.S. has not seriously enforced anti-trust,
and
that has led to concentration in many industries. That has driven out
competition, a pre-requisite for a free market, and created oligarchs who lobby to further game the
system. It has been particularly damaging to media.
Americans are very badly misinformed.

We have seen that deregulation
favors polluters, encourages
financial corruption, results in public health
hazards: all from loss of public accountability.

Republicans motivated the dismantling of New Deal
economic stabilizers like Glass-Steagle, they are working tirelessly to
eliminate safeguards in Dodd-Frank, nullify the Volker rule, shut down
the CFPB, the Republican Senate assured
banks that they will be bailed out if their derivative trades go bad
leaving them free to gamble with taxpayer's money and allow them to
exploit consumers.

These policies have propelled the U.S. to
unprecedented income inequality
with all of the toxic consequences that brings: a volatile economy,
anemic
demand, corrupt government, weak democracy,
rising poverty, a sinking middle
class, failing schools,
rotting infrastructure,
and dysfunctional institutions no
longer able to address the critical problems we face.
Republicans not only don't recognize the problems, they are making them
much worse.

In spite of the evidence, Republicans continue to argue
that tax
cuts increase revenue. In a particularly short-sighted piece of
legislation, they are cutting the budget of the IRS. Republicans are
irresponsible tax dodgers.

Republican tax policy is always
regressive. Republicans have changed
tax policy so that unearned income is taxed at
much lower rates than income
from actual work. The estate tax (aka the death tax) doesn't
apply to
99% of the people, its elimination benefits only the very wealthiest
but Republicans are determined
to eliminate it.

Trump's determination to
eliminate the inheritance tax (which applies to only the very wealthy)
could alone make his Presidency worth billions. The Walton family would
personally save many billions, so would the Koch brothers, so It makes
sense that billionaires will
back Trump. Like subprime mortgages, casinos, payday loans, bank
bailouts this is yet another way to shift the burden to taxpayers.
Republicans, being a largely a Party of Confederates, would make a
great resurgence of the Southern Plantation economy, or even a new aristocracy.

There is a strong correlation of Republican
Presidency's and massive bank
bailouts. Banks are even larger now than when they
were too big to fail.
Next time, and there is almost certain to be a next time
(coincidentally the bailouts always seem to occur when Republicans are
in office) we should nationalize the banks. Congress has made a
committment to bail them out again.

Government is not a business and shouldn't be run like one.
Business people are not particularly good at economics.

Republican austerity does
more harm than good. It leads to
more unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, degraded internet, poor
services, and a depressed economy. Everyone loses.

Republicans only care about deficits
when public money is being spent on people.

Growth cannot be unlimited, it has
only lifted yachts, and it will not solve any of our problems. More
likely it will exacerbate them.

...a doctrine that even Republican economists
consider dangerous
nonsense has become party orthodoxy.
And what makes this political triumph especially remarkable is
that it comes just as the doctrine’s high priests have been setting new
standards for
utter, epic predictive failure. Paul
Krugman (2/20/2015).

Just about everywhere in the West
except the United
States, where there is no mandatory paid time off, workers not only
get vacations but also short work weeks, government health care,
large pensions, high minimum wages, subsidized childcare, and so
forth. Why is the United States the exception?"
Claude S Fischer, Boston Review

When Republicans vow to make
government smaller, the most
important cuts for them are for people.

Republicans want to downsize Social
Security, food stamps, Head Start. block grant Medicare, reduce any
programs that actually benefit people.They are waging a
war on the poor. Just as income
inequality has reached new levels
of unfairness, they are
driving the massive downward mobility of the US middle class.

Although they have no credible substitute, they have
attempted many times to roll back Obamacare.
In
Republican States, rather than
help the uninsured, they would rather let people die. They would shrink
healthcare options for women.
They are pro-life
only for the unborn.

This is not new. Republicans
have, at least since Ronald Reagan,
opposed any effort to assist the underclass.
A strong social safety net is not
just an economic stabilizer, it is a moral attempt to assist the poor.
As automation, corporate consolidation,
off-shoring, and
overpopulation makes paying jobs more scarce, it will be increasingly
important to strengthen the welfare state.

Welfare 'reform' cut support for the vulnerable. As overpopulation and technology
advances
lead to higher unemployment, the social safety
net should be
stronger. Higher productivity should make for a better standard of
living, but because all the gains have gone to the top, the opposite
has
happened. Americans are working longer hours for less pay and benefits.

Republicans do not recognize the toxic effects of income inequality, which can propel
most people into debt servitude and crash the economy.
Although polls show it is very popular across the political spectrum,
Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage. Income
inequality is not only unfair, socially corrosive, but also lessens
demand and weakens
the economy

Rs would privatize education,
shrink the post office, but they have no problem growing the
world's largest military. Privatizing prisons has been profitable but
counterproductive.

In 1995 we had a government shutdown. Newt Gingrich was
Speaker of the House. Than, as now, Republicans were determined to
cut Social Security, Medicare,
and welfare was also a target. They
haven't changed. Now they are determined to gut the Affordable Care Act, voucherize Medicare,
and
block grant other programs for the truly vulnerable. However they
can always find money for tax cuts for the wealthy,
corporate welfare, the world's largest military,
the
burgeoning National Security
State, and the world dominating empire they
envision. The reality is that a weakening US economy can no longer
support the American empire, although, since
Republicans cannot give
up, we are losing our standard of living to pay for it. There must be
great secrecy for this policy, and black
agencies are well funded so that Americans are ignorant about it.

* Republicans have been engaging in brinkmanship with full
awareness that the economy could crash, They didn't care very much
if the US loses financial stability or if the
world economy crashes, what they want is to cut programs that
actually benefit people: like Social
Security, Medicare, head start, food stamps, and especially Obamacare. It is extortion. They have broken
the social contract.

While protecting tax breaks for
millionaires, they oppose relief for working Americans. They bust unions, oppose consumer
protection agencies, and
don't even protect school children from fast-food
companies. The Ryan
Budget reflects the mean spirited, regressive Republican
approach. See this video
of Elizabeth
Warren.

* Republicans oppose efforts to assist the middle (working)
class.
They oppose raising the minimum wage, which would lessen poverty and be
an economic
stimulus. They would cut social programs, they would privatize Social Security, voucherize
Medicare, cut food stamps, save money on head start. have no
credible answers for health care
issues, and have a stealth program to privatize education.
Cuts to higher education pushed
tuition higher and graduating students now face heavy debt (which
they cannot escape with bankruptcy), but Republicans have not
stopped student interest rates from doubling. and in the House of
Representatives have attempted to repeal Obamacare
48 times
in what was not only a
complete waste of time. They have NO concern with the millions of
Americans who are uninsured and no credible improvements. Universal healthcare is not part of
the Republican dream for America. Republican States have managed
to sabotage Obamacare though, thus depriving their uninsured of any
benefit. Oddly, these Republican States are
quite poor and more in
need. Conservative States, mostly the old Confederacy, are more
backward.

* Concentrated wealth
leads to oligarchy, economic
instability,
toxic media, political corruption, social pathology and fascism, It can be damped
down with stiff graduated taxes, but
Republicans
think a flat tax is a good idea, although,
not surprisingly, quite regressive. Since they are the party of oligarchs, R's are anxious to abolish the estate tax
also. Such
policies DO redistribute wealth...upward. Republicans are
the party of the very wealthy, and their
concerns are much different than most of the people.

If Republicans get their way, our shredded social safety net will be cut further.
the economy will sink as a result of austerity, poverty
will continue to soar, the wealthy
will continue to receive benefits from the government that they
have bought, the wall between church and
state will be smashed. People
will suffer because Republicans impoverish the
poor to benefit the already wealthy.
Yet another vicious cycle occurs as the wealthy game the system even
further for their own benefit. This is yet another short-sighted
Republican policy in which everyone becomes poorer as a result.

As the middle class sinks, so does
the economy because demand dries up, and a
vicious downward cycle causes
recession and misery.

James
Gilligan, formerly at the Harvard Medical School,
Director of Mental Health Services for Massachusetts prisons, and now
Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University has written a book "Why
Some Politicians are more Dangerous that Others”. In it he
gathers statistics for the U.S. and finds that violent deaths (murder
and suicides) are strongly correlated with Republican Presidencies.

* Although US infrastructure is
in poor condition, many jobs
might have been created by repairing it.
Interest rates are low, and it would have been a good investment,
Republicans opposed all real job creation efforts, and there is no
doubt that repairs will be much more costly later. An initiative to
repair or improve infrastructure would create jobs, the economy would
recover, but Republicans wouldn't get credit...so they won't approve.
You are no safer. (See Bob Herbert's book Losing
Our Way.) Our infrastructure is old, deteriorating, unsafe,
and wasteful. Instead of fixing it, Republicans would rather build a
wall across Mexico. Remember when Reagan said "Tear down this
wall ?"

The Republican mantra is YOYO: your on your own. It is every
man for himself, and you should be armed with
automatic weapons for your own safety. Picture those old wild west
movies enhanced with assault weapons. Check out Charles Derber's
book, Wilding of America, for some of the consequences.

Republicans have wrecked US media

Media, when it is not otherwise
distracting us, mostly covers elections
like a horse race, but unwittingly, we actually vote for an agenda because the winning cndidate will think
its a confirmation of
his beliefs. He may or may not do what he said he would. Both of out
leading Presidential candidates have mostly unfavorable ratings.

When Reagan did away with the Fairness
Doctrine and suspended enforcement of anti-trust laws, corporate America
rolled up into a few large monopolies. No where has this been more
damaging than in media.

The FCC buried a report that concluded
that concentration
of media causes loss of local jobs, loss of local news, and loss of
local accountability. Republicans usually try to bury information that is not consistent with
their ideology...even if the facts contradict them.

Journalism is on life support, universal surveillance stops
informed comment, whistleblowers are harshly punished, ideologues
dominate the news, conglomerates judge the election
as a
competition for money freezing out candidates
without deep pockets, and
all the while keeping Americans distracted, pacified, and ignorant
compared to people in well-governed countries.

Toxic political commentary has resulted from Republicans
turning over media to oligarchs and relieving them of public
responsibility. Media concentration has not only created a few billionaires, it has
contributed mightily to income
inequality, cut local jobs, made elections
obscenely expensive, forced politicians to be fund-raisers, corrupted
politics, reduced much that is broadcast into outrage, trivia, stealth
advertising, and misinformation, and made a mockery of the
competitive 'free market' (a free market, by definition, has reliable
information and many competitors. US media has neither. ) . Fox News has made itself gate keeper for
Republican Presidential
candidates.

Expensive media assures that only the wealthy can have
opportunity in politics. It is shameful and quite dangerous that
only two or three families with large donor bases
are eligible candidates for the Presidency.
Similar ancestry
dominates the Congress.

The internet
is subject to the
same consolidating forces as the rest of media, but has the additional
danger of becoming a universal
surveillance panopticon. Notice that massive wealth for a few
oligarchs results when people freely give up their information.

Comcast,
Time Warner, Verizon and AT&T together have spent more than $374
million lobbying to block Net Neutrality legislation. Not surprisingly,
Republicans are fighting net neutrality.

Almost all corporate entities caved to government and
collaborated in implementing universal surveillance. See this video.

Republican ideology is streamed
constantly by Fox News, CNN, and the rest
of corporate media. Citizens United
guaranteed a cash bonanza for media owners, so you won't hear about it
from them.

Corporate media, over the last decades, has corroded American culture. You need only take a close look at
your TV screen... or schedule.

Republicans Have embarked on a National
Campaign of Voter Suppression

*
US elections do not meet international
standards. The two parties have
a lock on the discussion. Citizens United
enables a flood of dark money that funds Candidates selected
far in advance by plutocrats.
They are
backed by corporate media that renders anyone without money invisible.
Republicans have blocked laws requiring financial disclosure. This
guarantees corruption, institutional failure. Download Lawrence
Lessig's book: Republic,
Lost.

Election rigging is
rampant...and
mostly Republican. Republicans
restrict registrations to exclude unwelcome voters (minorities,
students, and others). That's how they
win without a popular majority.

* Republicans, in states that they control, after
gerrymandering Congressional districts, have attacked public sector unions, laid off massive numbers of employees
(further depressing the economy ) and are engaging in a campaign of voter suppression. They have been
empowered to do this by partisan hacks on the Supreme Court.

* Given Republicans effort to make voting more difficult, we
should have substantial election
reform. The last Republican primary was an ugly, negative campaign by
remarkably undistinguished candidates trying to sell bad policy. They call themselves 'conservatives', but they are anything
but.

* Illegal
immigration is, of course a stealth Republican wedge
issue, (others are God, Gays, and abortion)
a continuation of the
Republican war on the underclass.
Like the "war on drugs", it also
benefits for-profit prisons.
Because felons are often not allowed to vote again, harsh crime
policy effectively suppresses minority votes.
The US record levels of incarceration are a win-win for Republicans
because they profit private
prisons, they are a tool for increasing the population of rural areas,
and they suppress voter eligibility. Michel Alexander has written that
they are the new Jim Crow.

* They celebrate Reagan's 'Tear Down This Wall' speech in
Germany, while funding an even more secure wall the length of the
Mexican border. This is profitable for a number of military contractors
and rouses the zenophobe base.

* Having been paid off by UPS and Fedex, they have made the Post
Office a casualty of their privatization
efforts. Next ,
with Rupert Murdoch and Jeb Bush leading, will be privatization of schools.

* Republicans, in opposing any
sensible regulation of firearms, have brought an epidemic of gun violence upon us. They are funded by
the NRA, a front group for the arms industry, and apparently only pro-life for the unborn. They are not
too concerned about the 137,000 deaths that result from Americans
who have no health insurance coverage.
deaths resulting from widespread famine in other countries, or
deaths from domestic gun violence. Although the Republican House talked a lot about jobs, what they spent
time on was abortion. Their policy on population is, long-run, self destructive. See
this for example.

* The right-wing government of Israel
has contributed millions of dollars
to the GOP, so the one thing the Republican candidates agree
on is that they will support Israel
in all circumstances. Israel is seriously considering
military action against Iran. All Republican
Presidential candidates favored war with
Iran.

LGBT rights are still strongly resisted
by Republicans, especially the religious
fundamentalists.

When people enter the work place,
they give up almost all liberty. The right to organize a union was
written into the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, but Republicans resistance to union
organizing has been a powerful damper on wages and benefits.

The universal surveillance
programs, implemented by Bush Neocons, that
have proved so ineffective did destroy trust in US based
multinationals, and will accelerate the Balkanization of the internet. Except for the Libertarian branch, Republicans are rolling back the Bill of Rights. Forget about the fourth
amendment, we have lost all privacy.

Republicans are Theocrats

* The single most important indicator that somone is a
Republican, is whether they are regular church attendees.

* For every major religion,
doctrine says: love thy neighbor.
So who are Republican's neighbors ? Immigrants ? Muslims ? Poor ? It
seems not, but they love their guns.

* Republicans religious hypocrisy is on full display as they
cut taxes for the wealthy,
and then cut
welfare, food stamps, meals on wheels, and other services for
the poor.

* Republican policy has led to increased poverty. Poverty
drives people to religion for comfort. Religion is media
that denies science, so its
education casts doubt on evolution,
cliimate change, and
fuels the tribalist beliefs that breed terrorism.
A bake sale is no substitute
a for robust social safety net.

* Republicans often proclaim religious
zeal. Many of them are trying to break
down the wall between church and state. Notice that the most
religious countries (or states) are also the most
backward. Our most prosperous and highly educated communities
are also
the most liberal. Republicans frequently
deny climate
change, evolution, and many of them
say higher education is indoctrination or
snobbery. It appears that they are waging a war
on
science and, using large money incentives, are politicizing
higher education and funding ideology
driven 'think
tanks'.

* Republicans claim to favor small, unintrusive government,
but they have no problem defending the Patriot
Act, the universal spying,
government secrecy,
or mandating invasive procedures for women.
Women were not allowed to testify about
this. Further, this was used as an excuse to allow employers to
tailor their health
insurance coverage any way they want. It appears
that the hidden hand of the health insurance industry and the Catholic
church are motivating these policies. They have opposed equal pay
for women
(the Lily Ledbetter Act). They are
doubling down on the
war on women.

* It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that religion is the main motivator for terrorism.
Why should it be tax exempt when we have massive military
expenses to be prepared for the consequences of religious intolerance.

* Many religious beliefs are in direct contradiction of
settled science, so we ought to
call them what they are: failed science
or destructive ideology. Religious 'education' is, in many cases,
profoundly contrary to the public interest. If you are poor in this
life, feel a duty to further the religious
cause, want to speed up your reward in the after-life, why not blow
yourself up.

Republicans cannot Govern for the people

When Republicans claim to want
small government what they mean
is they are for privatizing everything, expanding the military, but
cutting consumer
protectiion, voting rights, equal rights, the minimum wage, Social Security, social programs, the EPA
so that there will be freedom
to pollute, in short they want to give
corporate predators everything
that they want.

They want small government and deregulation, they say, but
they would regulate your sex life.

They are 'pro-life', they say, but,
unlike other advanced
countries, they favor the death penalty,
see little reason to regulate guns,
and in many Republican States turn a blind eye
to the thousands of deaths resulting from their
refusal to expand Medicare.

They are destroyers of the commons.
As a result, our infrastructure is in sad need of repair. (See Bob
Herbert's book Losing
Our Way.)

Republicans are Fascists

Republicans are corporate supremecists. Government run by
corporations is, by definition, fascist.
See this video.
(Lawrence Lessig)

The 'conservative' justices of the Supreme
Court have accomplished a coup:
they have removed the government of the people and replaced it with
government by the corporations. That
is, by dictionary definition, fascism. Our
government is not broke, it is bought. Congress
overwhelmingly decides
for the wealthy.

* The Supreme Court,
packed with corporate supremicists and right-wing ideologues, has
accomplished a coup: we now have a corrupt
government by the corporations
instead of government by the people. We have, as Lawrence Lessig has
documented so well, lost our Republic.

*
Corporations are not
people, and they should not be
allowed to pour cash into politics. It is corrupting. Cash is
not speech. Profit is not their highest goal. Citizens United assures government
by corporations, not people. Rule by corporations is, by
definition, fascism.

* Republicans are corporatists.
they represent the interests of the already wealthy.
They want regressive tax cuts, suppression of labor unions, and religion
that subjugates people. Deregulation,
like
privatization, is a strategy that removes corporate oversight,
transparency, accountability, and it is a major cause of the latest
market crash. Just as Bush I, taxpayers had to bail out the banks
again because Republicans have not learned the lessons of the great
depression and continue to fight for less financial
regulation. Expect another crash,
only this time it will be
worse because banks are even larger than last time.

* We have media that Congress allowed
to become dangerously concentrated. Rupert
Murdoch, found unfit to run a major corporation in Britain, not
allowed in Canada, owns the Republican
party and is actively spreading misinformation. Since he has not been
held accountable, toxic
politics will continue in the US. He can be
credited with incitement to right-wing
terrorism: the assassination of abortion
doctors,
death threats on high-profile liberals, and other civil
disorder. See this video.
(Robert McChesney)

* Except for Ron Paul, Republican candidates agreed that water
boarding is effective. Although they strongly defend the second
amendment (they are well
funded by the gun industry), they stood
by silently as the rest of the bill of
rights has been eviscerated.

Republicans, like other fascists in history, don't care about
the well-being of the people.
That's why they are persistent in cutting
all constructive social programs.

Republicans
demonize Muslims, Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and others in the 'axis
of evil' to justify increasing funding for the military. They don't
believe in diplomacy.

The Republican appetite for military spending is insatiable,
and it comes at the expense of the general
welfare. U.S. military misadventures have inflamed the world and
made us much less safe. Those
drones that we now deploy will one day fly over our cities. Nuclear
weapons will proliferate.

War is
a deeply counterproductive way
to conduct foreign policy, it has been disastrous for the Middle East,
we are engaged on a world-wide battlefield in an apparently endless
war, yet Republicans are clearly planning for
much more of it. Don't think that we
are safer as a result.

The US has a seemingly unbreakable habit of relying on Military
Keynsianism. Weaponry is the source of jobs for a large majority of
Congressional districts, and it is not only a terrible jobs program,
deprives us of civil liberties,
civilization, and may prove to be our own self-destruction. No one is
exceptional, but Republicans can't accept that.

Since there is no credible
threat to justify it, Republicans have been provoking threats from Iran and trying to revive the cold war
relationship with Russia. By placing missiles on the Russian border
they have incited a new arms race. War is profitable.

* Republicans are the party of the military-industrial
complex, so although we have no major enemies in sight, they refuse
to cut the military budget. Like any fascist government, they would expand the
military by cutting programs that actually benefit people, With the
exception of
Ron Paul, they are always ready to arm themselves to go to war. They have funded expensive, provocative
weapons programs like 'star wars' that
cannot
and will not work. This benefits corporate war profiteers, and robs
people of necessities like health care as well as efficient
infrastructure like high-speed rail. Because the US is now an empire, the US military,
now the largest in the world is dispersed to over a hundred countries.
It is the reason we are
facing financial ruin, opposition abroad, loss of our civil liberties, deteriorating services,
rotting infrastructure, declining standard of living, and a
militarized country. See this video.
(Chalmers Johnson.)

A large part of the US 'defense' budget is secret because it is used for purposes
that citizens would never approve and to fund state terrorism
world wide. (See, for example, SOAW.org)

If Republicans had the moral superiority that they claim, they
would want peace. They would have some
respect for international law,
join the
International Criminal Court, and pay their dues to the UN. Instead they oppose efforts to reduce
numbers of nuclear weapons and support the provocative star wars boondoggle. But war is
profitable, and world-dominating empire is
their goal, so they are warmongers. Like fascists
in history, they are not concerned with
the well-being of actual people. Only corporations.

Someone said: We might as well have burned the four trillion
dollars we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. See Nobel Prize winning
economist Joseph Stiglitz book: The
Three Trillion Dollar War: Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
(Stiglitz revised his estimate: It's
now more like $4 trillion.

Republicans Disdain International Institutions

The Iraq war caused world opinion of
the US to plummet. After
WW II the US signed the UN Charter which allowed
war in only two
circumstances: one, self-defense from an outside attack, or two, with
the unanimous agreement of the UN Security Council. We did not get such
agreement, and additionally there is now recognition that the case for
war was fabricated.

The Bush administration's prison at Guantanamo
showed that American law stopped at the waters edge. Torture made NEOCON officials war criminals.
Criticism of other countries human rights activities can only be seen
as hypocrisy now.

"TeleSur" - An international poll found that the United
States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world peace
today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan, with no one else even
close. (1/17/2015)
or (10/21/2014)

Many Republicans think torture
is ok. Some should be prosecuted for war crimes. That's why the U.S.
cannot join the International Criminal Court.

As we continue to destroy the habitability
of our planet, more of our
challenges are global. (See Kishore Mahbubani's book 'The Great Convergence'
for that argument.) It seems apparent that the US has great disdain
for international opinion and
institutions since it has consistently opposed adequate funding for
the UN, and crippled the WHO and the IAEA . It
cannot bring itself to join the ICC (International Criminal Court).

Republicans oppose science: They are Climate Change
Deniers

With one exception, none of the Republicans running for the
Senate - including the 20 or so with a serious chance of winning -
accept the scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible
for global warning. New York Times editorial 10/18/2010.

* The most profitable corporations, notably the fossil fuel industries, back the climate denying
'experts' and the Republicans. While real conservatives would leave
carbon in the ground, Republicans cheer for the polluters, the XL
pipeline, fracking, and more drilling. We should repeal payroll taxes
and replace
them with a carbon tax, but we won't because Republican tax policy is short-sighted, self-serving,
regressive,
misguided, and corrupt.

* In 1972 the club of Rome
computer models showed that growth
cannot be unlimited and recent studies show their forecast is on
track. Republican's ideas about population,
resource use, and market
fundamentalism assure that as we reach resource limits, the results
will be catastrophic. See this video. (Bill
McKibbon)

* The pressure of population has
caused the plundering of the planet: fisheries are collapsing,
glaciers melting with declining fresh water, desertification
accelerating, crop land shrinking, soil deteriorating, forests
diseased, species going extinct, and weather becoming more extreme.
Although the IPCC has escalated the warning, Republicans ignore these
problems. See Guy McPherson's web site: "Nature
Bats Last".

"In the past fifty years we've doubled our irrigated
cropland and tripled our water consumption to meet global food
demand. In the next fifty, we must double food production again. Is
there really enough water to pull that off ? In his book When the
Rivers
Run Dry environmental journalist Fred Pearce describes in
vivid, firsthand detail the stark reality of impending water crises
in more than thirty countries around the globe. We now withdraw so
much water that many of our mightiest and most historic rivers -
like the Nile, the Colorado, the Yellow, the Indus - have barely a
trickle left to meet the sea." (From the World in 2050: Laurence C
Smith)

* Mass extinction has already
begun. Republican efforts to defund the EPA
are most likely suicidal for humanity.

* We live on a planet that is unique as far as telescopes can
see. Republicans refuse to
acknowledge that the climate is
rapidly deteriorating and see no need to stop profligate burning of fossil fuels, slow population
growth, or even to take care in
harvesting resources or controlling pollutants. If they can make a
buck, they would rather destroy the planet. Most likely, they will.

With Republican policy of
disaster capitalism, humanity is doomed to an inhospitable planet if not extinction. That is
their legacy for their grandchildren. They are like Jim Jones on a planet-wide scale.

Summary

"It is difficult to find even a
single, constructive Republican policy choice".
Robert L Vogel

This Republican Congress is the
most obstructionist, dysfunctional and unproductive in our history.
Their
misguided agenda will put the
majority in debt servitude to profit the oligarchs
that own the party. But they are
primarily tax-dodgers unwilling to pay for
services required by an advanced country.
They are the party of ideas...only bad ones.

Republicans values are all about money.
They do not think the
American dream includes healthcare for
all, nor do they respect the
role of science in establishing fact
(they deny the looming climate
crisis), they twist their religion to invert
its dictum to burden
the poor and profit the wealthy, they do not believe economists
assessment of the damage from their austerity and
brinksmanship,
they are corporatists which by definition is
fascism, their voter id
laws and gerrymandering degrade elections
and reveal their racism,
their 'stand your ground' laws grant a right to vigilantism, their
appetite for all
things military is insatiable, they cry out
for small government but don't worry about the NSA,
or the growing national security
state. They don't like government which is why they are so bad at
it, their
YOYO (your on your own) attitude
is largely responsible for the "Wilding of America" (see Charles
Derber's book of the same title), their obstruction has made US
government dysfunctional. Although they yell they are defenders of
the Constitution, their actions will
shred it. Carrying the
confederate flag, it is apparent that many of them are secessionists.
Should you vote for them ? Not if you are an actual
patriot.

Now that Republicans control
the Senate, if they stay on their
course, they will continue denial
of climate change and head for certain
disaster. They will deny the
unfairness of extreme inequality
and the corrosive social
consequences. They will cut programs for the poor
and vulnerable
claiming that the deficit is more of a threat.
They will continue the
corrupt privatization of public
facilities including schools, the internet,
media, Post Office, and
more. Universal surveillance
will continue, civil liberties will
be a distant memory, real journalism will disappear, and, as the
economy tanks (Banks too big to fail are even bigger now) militarization of
the police will be appropriate for an arms race with
right-wing
protesters heavily
armed with assault weapons.
They refuse sensible gun regulation. A recent
study determined that the U.S. is an oligopoly
now, and Thomas Piketty's, Capital in the Twenty-First Century,
forecasts
that the one percent are going to benefit from an even greater
concentration of wealth which will be accelerated by Republican policy.

Another Republican President will bring the Neocon warmongers
back to public office to continue endless war
(most likely in Iran), appoint even worse
corporate supremecist
judges to the Supreme Court,
and accelerate our fast move to a fascist
police state. Existential
threats will be unaddressed because Republicans are all about denial of
the facts for short-term profit.

The test of our progress is not
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is
whether we provide enough for those who have too
little.- FDR

"The refusal to provide very minimal living standards
to people who are
caught in this monstrosity — that's just pure savagery." –Noam Chomsky

Republicans are driving
a very bad bargain: "we are in the process
of destroying a great many things which are real
air, soil, water, energy, resources, other
species, our health for the sake of something
that exists chiefly in our imagination: money. from DeclineOfTheEmpire.com

“When all the trees have been cut down, when all
the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover
you cannot eat money.” ~ Cree prophecy

...what we are now seeing are the obvious
characteristics of
the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason;
the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of
religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture -- a troika that was
for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; and the
political and economic marginalization of our culture. Of course, the
Dark Ages were not uniformly monochromatic, as recent scholarship has
demonstrated; but then, neither is present-day America. The point is
that in both cases "dark" is the operative word. Morris
Berman

Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post, said the
Republicans are
willing,
essentially, to allow World War III to commence unless the IRS does not
enforce the law on dark money, such as from the Koch brothers. To quote
him "It's bananas". It is pretty crazy. "Allow us to break
the law in order to win elections, or we allow WW III". Rachel
Maddow show 3/24/2014